2012 Flash Fiction Shortlist: Too Good to be True

Each day this week we will run one of the shortlisted stories from our 2012 Flash Fiction competition. Look for the winning piece in our end-of-year issue - on news stands 22 December. We've already published three: Digital Eyes, S3xD0ll and Sleep. Below is the fourth of the five shortlisted pieces.

Snappy and subtle observations of the capitalist economic system - and its limits.

Too good to be true

By Jouni Sarkijarvi

I did not remember having seen the box before. But there it was, in my bathroom. Innocent looking, the size of a shoe box. But it wasn't.

It was light, obviously empty. I would have opened it, but there was nothing to open.

I put it aside. Absentmindedly, gathering the laundry, I dropped a sock on it. It disappeared through the lid.

I pushed with my finger, but the lid remained closed.

OK, now I know where the socks vanish, leaving the other one of the pair.

Then I tried an apple, and the box swallowed it. Silently.

I took my garbage basket and emptied it to the box. Easier than taking it out.

The garden waste followed.

Soon I was making money with my box. Sewage sludge - gone. Hazardous waste - gone. But nothing that was alive: the box would not accept it. Good for my finger.

Think big: what else?

Then I got it. CO2. Could it save a planet with a climate going rampant?

It could. Carbon dioxide was faster to deliver and clean, not messy. You collect it, I come with my box and whisk it away. Money out of the air. And the fame.

Then one morning, a gnome woke me up. Or something like that, not human, anyway. Slightly transparent, like a 3D-projection.

"You are late in your payments."

"?"

"Your All-Purpose Mini Black Hole. We have not received a single unit. And don't say your check is in the mail."

"I don't recall having ordered it. I just found it. And I didn't even know what it is."

Silence. Five seconds.

"My apologies for waking you up. Our mistake. The first ever. And this item could not even be supplied to this planet."

"That's OK. You'll take it back, of course?"
"Not yet. In accordance to the universal consumer rights, we have to restore your processed deposits first. Please find a suitable place for it, about the size of the Sahara. You have 24 hours. Thank you for your cooperation."